Decision Impairment

     I have no patience for the decision impaired. I have never had a problem making decisions myself, and really cannot even begin to understand why other people do. Especially with the simple things, or what we normally call "no-brainers." I mean seriously, if you don't really need your brain to make this decision, how can the choice be so difficult? I've had to watch my kids agonize for what seems like hours over which Hot Wheel to buy. I watch customers waffle for way too long about wheather they need a 5 or 6 year battery. I just want to grab people, shake them, and scream "MAKE UP YOUR MIND!" But I don't. Usually.

     This being said, I happen to be married to a man who suffers from this affliction. Shopping with him is my fifth degree of hell. If he didn't get me the good parking, I would never take him anywhere. I've seen him put more thought into a model car or pair of pants than he has put into marraiges. Does he want it? Does it cost too much? If he waits for it to go on sale, will they sell out before he makes it back? Can he return it if he changes his mind? Then he turns to me and says "I don't know, should I get it?" Oh, no. I'm not falling into that trap! If I say yes, I made him spend money that should have been spent on something else. If I say no, I will forever be reminded of how I wouldn't let him buy the dream item he will want forever until the end of time. So my answer is always the same: "If you want it, get it. If not, walk away now. Just MAKE UP YOUR MIND!"

      I recently learned from an excellent article on Discover Magazine that the inability to make decisions plays a major factor in the psychology of hoarding. Simply put, if you can't decide what to throw away or where to put things, you never throw away anything and put things everywhere. So simple, but a huge revelation for me. That explains my house. And why I am the only person living there who can find the trash can. I honestly thought the decision impairment was the whole affliction in and of itself. A few weeks ago, I learned I was wrong. It is just a symptom of a much larger affliction. No, what "Cleveland" suffers from is not the inability to decide, it is the need for agreement. He does not consider himself to be correct until somebody, or better yet everybody, agrees with him. I don't know what to call this affliction. My first thought was "Ross Geller Syndrome" but anyone who hasn't seen the "Opposable Thumbs" episode of "Friends" would have no idea what this means. So I don't know what to call it, but it certainly exists.

    
     This is how I learned. The husband left with 2 boys and the truck to go buy wood to fix our soffits. Three hours later, they returned home with an empty truck. He did speak with the Menard's employees, though. Apparently, pine is cheaper but doesn't last as long. But cedar will last forever, making the extra cost up front well worth the reduced work later. A no-brainer, right? Wrong! He needed to come home and ask me first. Am I a wood expert? No. Have I done any research at all on which wood would be best suited to our needs? No. Did the employee seem to know what he or she was talking about while explaining the differences? Yes. Can you tell at a glance or at least at a touch the quality of the wood? I would assume. But none of these are good enough reasons to buy something, unless someone is there to tell you that you're right. How screwed up is this?


     I'm pretty sure what bothers me the most about the lack of decision making ability people have is the fact that they think every decision is so fricking important! If you agonize about which shirt to wear every day, how are you going to be able to make the really important choices? If I have to tell you what kind of wood to buy, how are you going to decide if you should pull the plug on me or not? Who is going to have to agree with you on that one?  And on the little decisions, and I guess by extension all decisions, "so what?" has always been my motto. I decided to wear the pink shirt instead of the green one. So what? I decided to take the highway instead of the back roads today. So what? I decided to base my entire career path on footwear. (If I can't wear gym shoes, I can't take the job.) So what? Yes I have made really bad decisions in my life. Big ones. So what? I learned what not to do the next time. The next decision will be easier to make because a wiser person will be making it. And I really don't need anybody to agree with me to know I'm right. You can have hundreds of people claiming the world is flat forever, it won't be any less round. Do I care if these people agree with me? No. And if they don't, so what?